Patrik Ervell Fall Winter 2013 Ready-to-Wear Collection

For Fall, Patrik Ervell gave us equal measures of his Swedish and Californian self. In design parlance, it means he feels most at home designing outerwear, and he surely gave his gents some thrilling offers. To backtrack a bit, the show notes referenced a “dark wood” and the need to guard from interferences – sure, a no brainer when it appears as a print of tangled brush on everything from bombers to flight suits. For those in the know, the original ‘dark wood’ opens Dante Allegheri’s “Inferno”, where the poet starts his descent into darkness. Well, that same imminence fueled Ervell’s show. The foiled runway provided a hint of an apocalyptic tone, but much like the clothes, it wasn’t a ‘wink’. This was Ervell at his most mature, most serious.

Without doubt, outerwear was the star of the show. A white bubble quilt cardigan (quilting is officially in, in, in) was a unanimous favorite among the crowd. The glossed over midnight blue trousers it came paired with certainly helped edge it to the front ranks of great looks of the day. Texture was another large part of his story. Besides the notable bubble quilting, Ervell sent out bomber jackets and streamlined coats in a black flocked wool. He even played with texture in a wholly different way – by tricking the eye. A dark teal chambray shirt was actually a sports jacket. Another ‘chambray’ with a black collar, was in a fact a teddy.

If the show faltered anywhere it was in energy. It should have felt more kinetic, and you can’t blame the transition from last season’s coed melange’, which is almost always a good idea, so what was it? Maybe it was the music. Who knows? Thankfully, the clothes did most of the talking here, and that one point on the cons list only realized itself towards the end of Ervell’s otherwise sparkling show.